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Mothers 'n' Law! For Mother's Day, 10 Weird Legal Cases Involving Moms

By Daniel Taylor, Esq. on May 09, 2014 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

There are mothers-in-law. And then there are mothers... in law. No offense, but we prefer the latter.

To celebrate Mother's Day, we combed our archives and found the Top 10 legal cases involving moms.

If you think your mom's weird... she probably is. But these cases involving moms are (hopefully) even weirder:

  1. Your Mama's So Mad, She Hacked Your Facebook: One Arkansas teenager got a valuable lesson about logging-out of social networks when his mom hacked into his Facebook account and started posting mean and vulgar messages on her son's page. The son sued, and a judge convicted mommy dearest of misdemeanor harassment.

  2. Duct Tape Can Fix Anything, Except Toddlers: It's one thing to duct tape your toddler to a wall. But it's another thing to then take pictures of your duct-taped toddler to share with your friends.

  3. Your Baby's Got a Dirty Diaper, and a Dirty Mouth: Kids say the darnedest things. But one Omaha 2-year-old said a lot worse than "darn," and was placed in protective custody after video of his vulgar baby-talk went viral. What ever happened to "Goo-goo, ga-ga?"

  4. My Son Makes the Team... or Else: One New York mom instilled the virtues of sportsmanship and fair play in her son by sending death threats to her son's little coach and his family after her son failed to make the team's summer roster.

  5. Mother's Morphine Milk: You'd imagine that a breastfeeding mom would avoid taking powerful painkillers like morphine. Especially if the mom in question is a former nurse. But a South Carolina woman was sentenced to 20 years in prison after her infant daughter died from an overdose of morphine transmitted through breast milk.

  6. Mom's House Has Totally Gone to Pot: A suburban New York mom was either a huge fan of the television show "Weeds" or just looking to earn some major cash. She was busted with over $3 million worth of hydrponic marijuana and later pleaded guilty to federal drug charges.

  7. How Much for That Baby in the Window?: A Mississippi mom was arrested for offering to sell her baby for $5,000 to a woman who responded to a Craigslist ad for baby clothes. Unfortunately for her, Mississippi passed a law specifically making it a crime to offer to sell or buy a child.

  8. Back Off Mommy's Pop-Tarts: We love Pop-Tarts around here, but one North Carolina mother took her love of Pop-Tarts to the next level: She had her son arrested for stealing her Pop-Tarts. Wonder what happens when someone steals her lunch?

  9. Just Say No... to Poppy Seed Bagels?: The question of whether poppy seeds on bagels and muffins can cause false positives on drug tests was answered affirmatively by an episode of "Mythbusters." Unfortunately, that didn't stop a mom from losing custody of her infant after a poppy seed bagel caused her to fail a drug test. The mom later settled the case for six figures, which can buy definitely buy a lifetime supply of plain bagels.

  10. Mom Needs Her Bottle Too: A Pennsylvania woman left her 2-month-old baby in a car while she was drinking at a bar for five hours. Oh, and by the way: It was 39 degrees outside at the time.

Happy Mother's Day!

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